Dealer  West both vul .

                                    ♠          A Q 3

                                    ♥          —

                                    ♦          J 10 8 7 6 5 4

                                    ♣          K J 3

            ♠          9 6                                            ♠          K 2

            ♥          A Q 10 9 6 5 4                           ♥          8 7 2

            ♦          K 2                                           ♦          A Q 9 3

            ♣          9 7                                            ♣          Q 10 8 5

                                    ♠          J 10 8 7 5 4

                                    ♥          K J 3

                                    ♦          —

                                    ♣          A 6 4 2

All my students will love this hand as I will allow them to do their favourite play i.e. cross ruffing.

However its not really cross ruffing – its just ruffing three times in the short hand i.e. North.

East covers the Jack at trick one and you win with the Ace. You now enter dummy by ruffing a Heart. You play a small Diamond off the table and East unwisely plays the Ace thinking you might have a singleton King. You ruff and now play another Heart ruffing in dummy. You now play another low Diamond ruffing and noting that West follows suit with the King. You ruff your last Heart in dummy . You are now going to do a ruffing finessin with your remaining Diamond.

West cover with the Queen and you trump high. You now re-ener dummy with the carefully preserved Club King to play the promoted Diamond chucking your club. West gets in and plays a Heart which you can now ruff. As long as you get the spade position correct at the end and bring down the King and 9 ate same time by playing your Trump Ten you will now get home-

You lost two trumps and a club.

You can also play out the following hand  to see how the hand pans out. (You need bridgvu.exe programme  and it is available free from   http://www.haroldschogger.videoes.html or BridgeBase programme on your machine already to view it )

alternatively watch the film of the hand being played out by going to www.haroldschogger.com/movies2.htm